Meeting of the Parliament 02 December 2021
I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate and will focus my remarks on how we can help public health to recover from the pandemic. The omicron variant is a painful reminder that we are not out of the woods yet and that Covid-19 is still a very real threat. The Greens have been clear that we need to take a precautionary approach and ensure that a range of mitigation and health protections are in place, including a robust test and trace system, asymptomatic testing and PCR testing for international travellers.
It is indisputable that the pandemic has put severe and serious pressures on all areas of health and social care. Once again, I thank all those who have worked so hard during the pandemic.
Before the pandemic, Scotland was known for its poor public health. The “sick man of Europe” moniker has been hard to shake off. As I have said before, in this session, I would like the Parliament to be the public health Parliament. We need a renewed focus on improving people’s standard of living and tackling non-communicable diseases. We should be building on people’s increased awareness of their health, which has arisen from the pandemic.
We know that inequality is a main driver of poor health and, as we have heard, the current rise in the cost of living has put a real squeeze on incomes. Everyone has the right to an adequate income to live on, and the Greens have long supported a universal basic income. At the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, we heard from Professor Sir Harry Burns and others about the positive impact that such a policy could have on health and wellbeing. Although our preference would be for a UBI, I am pleased to see that work on a minimum income guarantee is under way. I look forward to monitoring progress on that.
During the earlier part of the pandemic, we saw that emissions fell significantly along certain routes as we took fewer car journeys. Many of those routes are seeing a return to normal and those living, working and playing along them are again being subjected to a high level of pollution. As part of our recovery and to improve health, we need to tackle environmental harm such as air pollution, as well as health-harming products.
We know that more people have been drinking at home during the pandemic and that that is contributing to more alcohol-related deaths, which increased by 17 per cent in 2020. We need to address the ubiquity of alcohol. Given that we are constantly told of the health benefits of sport—and rightly so—why do we allow alcohol brands to sponsor sporting events? That seems counterproductive to say the least, particularly when combined with the fact that more people are engaging with sport at home, where we know that more drinking has been taking place. That also has impacts on children in households.
I have expressed my support for the uprating of minimum unit pricing. The policy was bold when it was introduced, but in order for it to continue to have an impact, we must ensure that it keeps up with inflation. I would also like to see mandatory unit calorie and ingredient labelling as well as prominent health warnings on alcohol products, so that people can be better informed about what they are consuming. We put calorie and ingredient labels on food and other drinks and we need to ensure that alcohol is not the exception to the rule.
Turning to mental health, we know the impact that the pandemic has had on mental wellbeing. The Greens are clear that everyone should have access to the support and treatment that are right for them, whether that be medication, counselling, social prescribing or in-patient treatment. We want treatment options to be diversified, particularly in the community. People should be able to access services through their GP surgery, for example. We also need to make better use of social prescribing. Clinicians’ time to engage with social prescribing was limited before the pandemic and, as we know, health services are under more pressure than ever. The provision of social prescribing can also be patchy.
Alongside an expansion in provision, I would like it to be made easier for clinicians and other professionals to signpost patients to resources and for patients to self-refer. I hope that community mental health link workers will play an important part in that.
While we deal with the on-going impact of the pandemic, it is never too early to set out our positive vision for Scotland. Now is the time to implement bold and radical policies to improve Scotland’s public health now and for generations to come.